Will I Be Next?

US may be guilty of war crimes over drone use – Amnesty Intl

US officials responsible for carrying out drone strikes may have to stand trial for war crimes, according to a report by Amnesty International, which lists civilian casualties in the attacks in Pakistan.

The report is based on the investigation of the nine out of 45 drone strikes reported between January 2012 and August 2013 in North Waziristan, the area where the US drone campaign is most intensive. The research is centered on one particular case – that of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed by a US drone last October while she was picking vegetables with her grandchildren.

The report is entitled ‘Will I be next?’ citing the woman’s eight-year-old granddaughter Nabeela, who was near when the attack occurred, but miraculously survived.

"First it whistled then I heard a "dhummm". The first hit us and the second my cousin,” Nabeela recalls.

The report also recounts an incident from July 2012, when 18 laborers, including a 14-year-old, were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi. The men gathered after work in a tent to have a rest when the first missile hit. The second struck those who tried to help the injured.

“Amnesty International is seriously concerned that these and other strikes have resulted in unlawful killings that may constitute extrajudicial executions or war crimes,” the report reads.

Amnesty’s main point is the need for transparency and accountability, something the US has so far been reluctant to offer.

“The US must explain why these people have been killed - people who are clearly civilians. It must provide justice to these people, compensation and it must investigate those responsible for those killings,” Mustafa Qadri, the Amnesty researcher who wrote the report, says.

The report comes at a time when the US is facing growing international pressure over its drone program.

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, is currently in Washington, where he is expected to talk drones with Barack Obama. And on Friday the UN General Assembly will be debating the use of remotely-piloted aircraft.

In a separate report, a UN investigation revealed some 33 drone strikes around the world - not just in Pakistan - that violated international humanitarian law and resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. That report is also calling for more transparency and accountability from the United States. More

What the world lacks is Statesman, real leaders, leaders who, because of their record of standing up for doing the right thing, are respected. Who respects leaders today? They carryout extra-judicial killings, murder, invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, perhaps Syria next, cause millions of deaths, so who could respect them?

We must all fight to uphold the Rule of Law. The United States has set a precedent for international extra-jucicial killings. Which will be the next country, because they feel threatened by the United States, sends drones to attack them?

Extra-judicial killings are illegal and must be stopped. The planet has enough problems facing it from climate change, energy security and food and water security without illegal killings which may be a conflict trigger.

Leaders need the vision to see the bigger, long-term issues and realize that unless we all work together for the survival of the planet we shall in all likelihood perish. Editor

US drone strike draws angry Pakistan protest

The government of Pakistan has summoned an American envoy to lodge an official protest over the latest drone attacks that killed at least nine people in the country's northwest region, officials said.

Nawaz Sharif

US charge d'affaires Richard Hoagland was summoned to the foreign ministry on Saturday as Pakistan lodged a formal protest over the Friday night strikes, ministry spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said.

"It was conveyed to the US charge d'affaires that Pakistan strongly condemns the drone strikes, which are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Chaudhry.

"The importance of bringing an immediate end to drone strikes was emphasised," he added.

Pakistan also said that the strikes were "counter-productive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives and have human rights and humanitarian implications".

About six missiles were fired at a compound suspected to belong to a Taliban commander in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, one of seven tribal districts near the border with Afghanistan, a security official said.

"Nine militants were killed in the strike," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Those killed were from the local Bakka Khel tribe and they have been identified".

It was first attack since the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sworn in on Wednesday.

The attack also came 10 days after a similar US strike killed the Pakistani Taliban's second-in-command, Wali-ur-Rehman, and six others in a major blow to the rebel group.

President Barack Obama said last month the United States would scale back drone strikes, only using them when a threat was "continuing and imminent".

But Sharif declared in his first speech as premier that the "chapter of drone attacks" should come to an end. More

 

What the drones protest march in Waziristan aims to achieve

Sports star turned politician Imran Khan and civil rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith will highlight US drones' innocent victims

The British civil rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and international cricketer turned politician Imran Khan will begin a peace march on 7 October into Pakistan's Waziristan region. Their aim is to highlight the plight of innocent people killed or injured by US drones.

Smith took the precautionary measure of writing to President Obama and his CIA director, David Petraeus, informing them about the march. In the letter, he requested that the president ensure the names of him and the other marchers would not be on the weekly kill list the president reviews, along with security officials, in the White House situation room. Smith wrote:

"Please remember that you and I are both lawyers from the same tradition, and it would be unseemly (as well as being both illegal and upsetting for my family) if you were to authorize my assassination."

Like the sealed corridors in which the top secret kill list nomination process occurs – an account of which was reportedly leaked by theObama administration to the New York Times – Waziristan has, until now, remained in the shadows, a place about which very little is known or reported. It is hoped the march will help open the area to public scrutiny by taking media there to gather independent information.

Smith's letter also highlighted problems with the president's drone strategy, such as using the same intelligence that populated Guantánamo Bay. I think it's fair to assume intelligence-gathering has improved – one certainly hopes so, considering 88% of Guantánamo's 779 detainees were cleared for release. But of greater note is how Obama campaigned against President Bush by criticising his policy of imprisoning without trial – yet has chosen to kill individuals without trial.

There's no evidence those in Waziristan deemed America's enemies have either the will or ability to threaten America from thousands of miles away, Smith wrote. The region's threat extends, at most, to Pakistan, which should be allowed to resolve its own problems – as those such as Imran Khan argue that it is capable of doing. But on this point, I sympathise with Obama, since the Pakistan government has mastered the art of emitting mixed signals and behaves as an unreliable ally. Eyebrows that were raised over Osama bin Laden being found next to the Pakistan military academy in Abbottabad have yet to find reason to be lowered.

Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove doesn't come close to matching that logic for war room farce.

US concern over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is also understandable, and Smith's letter acknowledged that further radicalization of Waziristan is a threat to Pakistan and global security. But the US's chosen course of action undermines its objective, resulting in damage to its reputation, a failure to win hearts and minds – evidenced by research showing 97% of Pakistanis opposed to US action within their territory – and culminating in what Smith calls the "desperate failure of US policy". Wailing Iraqi mothers and maimed Afghan children whom I saw during operational tours with the British army vouch for that. More